When former Fugees rapper Wyclef Jean released his memoir Purpose: An Immigrant’s Story earlier this week he revealed the detailed story of his doomed relationship with former band member Lauryn Hill.
The memoir exposes their affair and eventual betrayal according to Wyclef at the hands of his lover when she lead him to believe her first child, Zion, was his.
In an excerpt provided the Salon, Wyclef shares no regret for the affair that may or may not have lead to Lauryn’s breakdown:
I’ve been told by many angry people who are also her fans that if I hadn’t messed with her she would not have gone so insane. My response to that is: you can talk as much as you want to talk, because talking is easy, because you’re not the one who was in my shoes. You’re not the one who had to be around that beautiful woman 24/7 sharing genius space with her. We shared a creation, one made of our passion, molded into music that went out into the world and became an album that seized the times. It’s the yin and the yang; there is a give and a take. We gave of ourselves, we put ourselves together to make something, and what happened was the price we had to pay. I wouldn’t take that back if it meant taking back what we did with the Fugees. I can’t speak for her, but I hope she feels the same.
Readers of the excerpt had no mercy laying it out on the now author for being egotistic, narcissistic, and other no so pleasant names.
One commenter wrote:
What a no good ass.
So he’s with the girl,putting the moves on her, pressuring her although he has another woman. He spends all his time with her and they become very successful. And midstream he marries someone else and then continues the affair with the woman he initially seduced.
She’s young, in love, bound professionally and emotionally and when finally it ends she meets another guy, falls in love, has a baby and think she’s finally got her own man and isn’t being made a fool of and nope. Again in front of the entire world she’s made to look like an ass.
Poor girl.
But damn Wyclef,man up and admit that you screwed Lauryn over and stop acting as if she were insane or irrationally jealous or a Gemini and that your affair was inevitable. You wanted her and the other woman and you got them both and someone else paid the price. Own it. This self serving cowardly drivel -ugh.
One commenter jumped to his defense insisting the tone of the memoir was not boastful, grandiose and indeed very honest.
He is absolutely right to say that just about any young man would act on the opportunity to have simultaneous intimate relationships with a MODEL and a young Lauryn Hill at the peak of her create powers and physical beauty. Anyone who disputes this is delusional and/or naive about human relationships and male sexuality.
It is also true that his continuing of that deceptive threesome was an abhorrent and immoral act. He acknowledges the forgiveness required for his wife to remain with him.
Having read this piece I don’t see where Wyclef boasts about being the reason Lauryn fell off creatively and professionally.
Infidelity is wrong and it hurts. Those of us who have committed it or been the victims of it (and some of us can claim both those titles) know this and can never forget it.
While there isn’t enough self-flagellation in this piece to suit the moralizers among us, I for one appreciated the tone (which I didn’t find grandiose) and the perspective.
And it’s just that:
One person’s perspective.
Lauryn has a different one and I’d love to read her’s too.
Lauryn has remained quiet about Wyclef’s memoir but like the above commenter we too would like to hear her side.
